The present invention relates generally to multi-media communication, and more specifically to the multi-media communication with multiple communication sessions through multiple networks, wherein a network includes an individual or combination of communication paths, such as, but not limited to, an internet, an intranet, a local area network, a wireless local area network, a wireless wide area network, a cellular network, or any other suitable communication path capable of facilitating communication.
In a typical communication system, a first communication device interacts with a second communication device through at least one network, wherein a communication device includes, but not limited to, a terminal computer, a mobile computing device, a personal digital assistant, a mobile telephone, or any other suitable device capable of engaging in communication. In order to properly facilitate the communication process, the first communication device initiates the communication by transmitting a session invite request, such as a session initiation protocol (SIP) invite request, to the second communication device. The session invite request is provided to a session proxy in communication with the at least one communication network, wherein the session proxy includes any device, implemented in hardware, software, or a combination thereof for transfer of information between multiple communication devices and/or networks. The session proxy provides the session invite request to the second communication device, such that the second communication device can accept the session invite request and transmit an acknowledgment signal (ACK) back to the first communication device. A communication session is then active between the first and second communication devices, wherein a communication session includes, but not limited to, an active communication connection between multiple communication devices where information is transferred therebetween. Moreover, a multi-media communication session includes the combination of multiple active communication sessions directed to different media types.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art session invite request 100, such as a SIP invite request, includes a plurality of call transaction identifiers 102 indicating communication information used for the establishment of a communication session, wherein each of the plurality of call transaction identifiers 102 has a call transaction value 103. For example, a SIP call transaction identifier, INVITE SIP 104 contains a field “USER B” 105, wherein the INVITE SIP 104 indicates that the invite request is to be transmitted to USER B. Another example of a call transaction identifier is a VIA identifier 106, which designates how the communication between the initiating communication device is provided to USER B, through NETWORK 107. The SIP invite request also includes a FROM field 108, USER A 109, and a TO field 110, USER B 111.
The SIP invite request 100 further contains a CALL ID field 112, “1234567” 113 and a command sequence (Cseq) field 114, 1 INVITE 115. The prior art SIP invite request 100 further contains at least one media field 116 which indicates the type of media to be communicated within the communication session, such as AUDIO 117 and VIDEO 118. In the prior art session invite request 100, a plurality of media indicators 116 are provided, indicating an audio field and a video field for multi-media communication.
If a prior art communication device attempts to engage in a multi-media communication session, wherein the multi-media communication includes multiple communication sessions wherein the different communication devices share information having more than one media type, such as, but not limited, audio, text, or video, across one or more networks, the communication device will send the session invite request 100, typically to the proxy or directly to the second communication device. If the prior art communication device attempts to engage in a multi-media communication session across multiple networks, for example utilizing a first network for a first media type and a second network for a second media type, the device will resend the same session invite request 100 multiple times, wherein the receiving device, such as the proxy or second communication device, ignores the multiple requests as being deemed duplicative of the original request. Therefore, a communication device cannot engage in a multi-media session over multiple networks, as the proxy or second communication device cannot distinguish between multiple session invite requests from the first communication device to the second communication device.